"It's been a phenomenal year for us, but our objective today is different than what it was a few months ago," said David E. Sharbutt, chairman and chief executive officer of the fastest growing Sprint PCS partner in the nation.

These days, Alamosa is focused more on efficiencies vs. growth at any cost  growth that has brought with it 500,000 paying customers for personal communication services, or PCS.

Part of that growth came about as a result of acquisitions made involving other, smaller wireless companies.

Other growth has been driven by licensing agreements that Alamosa was offered by Sprint based on the company's ability to penetrate new markets as well as deliver location-driven services in a timely manner.

Alamosa's growth has been nothing short of explosive since coming on the scene three years ago.

The build-up and build-out of its system has taken the company from markets it initially licensed from Sprint in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado to new territories stretching from the upper Northwest to America's heartland, in states from Wisconsin to Missouri.

While its common stock has somewhat languished in the mid-teens since reaching the low $30 per share level, Sharbutt is hoping its presence on the Big Board will give shareholders the stability they seek vs. the often-volatile swings on the NASDAQ, whose precipitous drop started with a dot-com shakedown earlier this year.

With 15.6 million potential customers in its service area, Sharbutt sees the upside when it comes to selling PCS devices that are being engineered to do more in the future.

Alamosa's long-range ability to grow will depend on just that  having a product customers want  with proven technology that delivers voice and other data in a timely manner.

Growth has hardly been a problem for Alamosa. For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Alamosa (NYSE: APS) reported 404,000 subscribers, up 88,000 from the previous quarter  313,000 more than the third quarter a year ago.

Also keeping pace is subscriber revenue, up 27 percent over the previous quarter to $67.5 million  318 percent compared to the same third quarter a year ago.

Alamosa projects it will add anywhere from 96,000 to 121,000 new subscribers over the course of the final 2001 quarter, giving the company a total of 500,000 plus subscribers who  on average  spend $92 a month.

Sharbutt said 2001 was about integrating the companies it had acquired, including Southwest PCS, which gave it access to subscribers across Oklahoma, with the exception of Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

"Our growth has been fast, but we made a decision (in 2001) to assess just what made us a success. We know we're good at launching markets, but we also realized that we have to become more efficient in the way we operate."

Sharbutt said that required a change in direction among its own high-flying culture, which moved on rapid expansions. Now the concentration, he says, is building on the markets it has.

While Sharbutt doesn't rule out future acquisitions, he believes those will come in time as other industry peer groups fail to cut the mustard.

Sharbutt said the future, at least for Alamosa Sprint PCS consumers, is 3G  third generation technology  which will enable users with 144 kilobit devices designed to give them instant data and voice.

Alamosa plans to roll out that next generation technology in Lubbock in June.

Alamosa has also been smart along the way, farming out back office services such as billing to Sprint Corp., which can do the job cheaper and more efficiently.

In Lubbock, Alamosa is hardly alone, competing head-on with the likes of Cingular Wireless and Cellular One for market share.

"But our challenge is to remember who we are every day," Sharbutt said. "Our objective is to figure out where our customers are and where they travel to the most."

Sharbutt said one good example of that is Ruidoso, N.M., which as Alamosa soon found out was a necessary destination that needed to be integrated into its system based on its own market findings in West Texas and New Mexico.

Alamosa employs 850 full-time workers and 350 part-timers and operates 51 storefronts in its service areas, according to Sharbutt.

But it's not selling PCS phones that's the moneymaker. Like its competitors, for Alamosa it's all about moving minutes and selling services  both of which are the bread and butter of its income.

"There's big changes in these types of instruments that are coming, but generally our vision how to use these technologies is pretty poor," Sharbutt said, adding that consumers will dictate what works in their lives.

For example, Sharbutt said new devices coming out are equipped with GPS (global positioning systems) that will allow consumers not just the ability to see where they're at, but sales going at destination storefronts or visual eye-to-eye contact with people they're calling.

Sharbutt's view of that technology is crystal clear, must like the West Texas skies that carry Alamosa's airwaves.